Establishment of integration management

In order to be able to meet the needs of the recruited nurses from abroad effectively, many companies have already discovered that setting up an integration management department or a personnel department for this area has been a good idea. All topics, questions and issues related to the recruitment, arrival, induction training and recognition procedure can be channelled and processed in integration management. Integration managers can develop tailored suggestions for the strategic facilitation of a welcome culture – and bring them together conceptually.

Field reports show that the implementation of a structurally anchored integration management is worth the investment, even if there is only a small number of internationally recruited nurses. But it is important to define clear responsibilities in advance. Suitable employees must be found, and these must be entrusted with creating and maintaining the necessary structures. This also means writing the fields of responsibility in the job description of the respective employees, and giving them the relevant resources in respect of working time, a budget and room to manoeuvre.

Even if a department cannot (yet) be established for integration management, it is absolutely necessary to clarify the relevant responsibilities. It is important not to underestimate the coordinating and moderating role of the facility in the international recruitment of nurses. Even if a company works with a recruitment agency, a central contact person who attentively follows the entire process, taking action where necessary, is essential. This also applies if the commissioned recruitment agency offers to accompany the recognition procedure or to help with relocation and social integration according to the agreed services.

We absolutely recommend that you write down in a concept paper the various integration-promoting measures and services that a company provides in the course of international recruitment and promoting the welcome culture. This has several advantages:

• It helps the company to reflect upon the services it is offering: Which measures do we offer and how are they linked to one another? Have we thought of everything?
• Responsibilities can be clearly defined: Which positions or which people are responsible for which measures? How are processes regulated?
• It brings transparency: With an understandable concept, the existing employees are transparently shown which measures are planned as regards international recruitment; at the same time nurses who are thinking about being recruited by a company get an overview of the integration-promoting measures that a company actually offers, so that they can evaluate these themselves
• It brings structure and reliability: Having a conceptual framework also relieves the pressure because it defines the field of responsibilities in which companies want to be active and guarantee reliability
• It serves as a work aid. Employees use the concept and possible checklists to work through work tasks
• The collaboration with service providers becomes plannable: If a company decides to outsource certain activities to external service providers such as recruitment agencies, relocation service agencies or trainers, contracts can be more clearly defined and points of intersection can be designed more smoothly
• It is important to check and evaluate the concept in terms of its up-to-dateness and accuracy on a regular basis.
• Collaboration with a recruitment agency that has been awarded the “Fair Recruitment Healthcare Germany” seal of quality is made easier. According to the requirements catalogue of the quality association “Anwerbung und Vermittlung von Pflegekräften aus dem Ausland e.V.”, recruitment agencies with the seal of quality will request their commissioning company to write an integration management concept

The structure of the Welcome Culture & Integration Toolbox can also be a helpful guide in conceiving and writing down a company-own integration concept. Your company then decides on the content and concrete measures that you will use to fill out this structural framework. You can find further tools that may be helpful in compiling an integration management concept in the following two examples:

As the international recruitment of nurses demands more from employers than recruiting people from Germany, it is well worth while considering the following points and discussing them in your team:

• the fundamental decision of whether international recruitment should take place

• the choice of the recruitment channel:
  • via a state recruitment agency such as the ZAV or the programme Triple Win
  • with the help of a private internationally active recruitment agency
  • through independent recruitment abroad

• the decision for an applicant:
  • for the decision with which applicant an employment contract should be signed, the opinion of the integration management department can also be taken into consideration

• the support of the arrival management:
  • after the decision which people should in future be employed in the company in Germany, a (currently still) laborious process of arrival management starts; from the employment contract to obtaining necessary documents, submitting the application to booking the flight, there are various points in which integration managers need to act on behalf of their company

• the preparation of the company:
  • an integration concept may still need to be agreed and written
  • the employees’ representative should be informed, as well as the team of the host company
  • a suitable, tiered induction training plan should be compiled
  • the decision of whether a mentoring programme should be used and which employees will take part

• accompanying the recognition procedure:
  • the integration managers can be in contact with the recognition authority on behalf of the company and open up the possibilities of preparatory courses for the knowledge test, professional alignment courses and language support with their own or cooperating educational institutions

• Contact persons for the newly arrived employees:
  • once the newly recruited employees have arrived, they appreciate having reliable contact persons; integration managers can of course also refer to the appropriate persons or institutions

• Contact persons for the other colleagues from the existing team:
  • for the members of the existing team too, contact persons are very important for dealing with suggestions, conflicts or simply queries

• Contact person from the company management:
  • in smaller companies, the managers themselves will often also take over the integration management; in larger companies, it may be helpful for the management to be able to rely on one employee who keeps track of these multifaceted topics and can make recommendations